


100 Clouds Drifting

by Lilymoncat



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: 100 Drabble Challenge, 100 Themes Challenge, Class Differences, Different names for Flames, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Unconventional Uses for Dying Will Flames, maybe crossovers, probably Skull-centric, variations on a character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-14 12:47:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11208390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilymoncat/pseuds/Lilymoncat
Summary: The 100 themes challenge, focusing primarily around Skull for the moment.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Trying this to actually see if I can get all the way through it. I'll probably primarily focus on Skull, but the other Arcobaleno and Reborn Characters will most likely show up as well.

His introduction to the others is not the best.

Skull has always known there were others like him, and he’s avoided them like the plague. Healers, Changers, Shields, Swords, Calmers, Homes, he’s wanted nothing to do with them. He’s a Maker, he doesn’t need or want them to get by. Even Homes are not to be trusted, they always say he’s too strong. He knows nothing of their world, their terms for themselves. He will not be bound or chained, no Maker ever will.

Then the Old One offers him a job he can’t refuse, and he HAS to work with them.

They take one look at him and call him civilian, weak. They consider him stupid because he doesn’t know their words for their Wills. They call him Lackey, or useless. If he wasn’t dead certain the Old One would force him back, Skull would leave in a heartbeat. They clearly don’t want him, even the Home which they call Sky only tolerates him.

Since they make no effort to learn what he knows about Will, Skull is forced to try to learn theirs with no help.

Their system makes little to no sense to him. Why call a Home a Sky? You can’t build anything permanent in the sky, even birds don’t live in it twenty four seven. How does the Sun relate to Healers? The Sun can scorch, can damage skin and poison cells far more then it heals, he can barely wrap his head around it. Rain has as much to do with Calmers in his opinion as fish have to do with apples. How the hell does the Lightning which blows apart trees, starts fires and kills people match with a Shield’s ability to absorb damage? Mist doesn’t change anything and rarely fools the eye, so why relate it to a Changer’s ability to give false visions or change what is there? About the only one that has some correlation he can understand is Storm and Sword. Both are destructive and deadly.

They call him a Cloud, and Skull honestly can’t understand why.

Clouds have little to nothing to do with Making. With taking what you have and creating more through sheer force of your Will. Okay, maybe they make Rain and Storm, but they are a very poor example of Making. Then again, Skull is in some ways a poor example of a Maker. His will has a hard time expressing itself outside of his physical form, though he can Make just about any wound disappear. All his power is channeled inward, focused on allowing him to survive the insane stunts he does. He is not a fighter, he is a survivor, and his Will screams at him that if he stays, his chances of survival grow slim.

No, Skull’s introduction to the others who will become Arcobaleno is not the best one.


	2. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He does not Love people, normally.

Skull has little interest in love, at least as it applies to people.

Lust is a different story, one based on instinct and need and he has no problem with it. He can admit to finding both Lal Mirch and Renato attractive, well as long as Renato doesn’t open his mouth and be his jerkwad self. If either gave an indication of interest, he’d sleep with them in a heartbeat. But Lal Mirch has another Calmer’s Will so intertwined with hers Skull has a hard time figuring out which of them is actually the stronger and Renato is a womanizer and clearly not interested in men, no matter how pretty.

Love is something Skull reserves for his bike and adrenaline. For going faster and faster, cutting under eighteen wheelers and narrowly escaping having to Will himself back together again. Love is not something for humans to him, not for a long time.

But Luce places Aria in his hands first, and Aria places Yuni, and they are humans he can love.

(In a future that will not come to pass, Skull faces a Broken Home with all the force of his Making to buy time for the others to get Yuni away. He fights well after he knows his survival isn’t happening, all the maddened fury of a boar run to earth. It is not enough, but he dies with a mocking smile on his lips. He dies for Love, an irony in and of itself.)

He does not ever choose to call either of them Home, and they understand this. He is a Cloud, binding him is next to impossible.

But for them he will Make the future as bright as it can be.


	3. Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lack of strong light from Flames makes the Arcobaleno easy to find.

Kawahira is used to the lack of light from flames anymore.

It’s what makes finding the potential Arcobaleno fairly easy for him. So many dull embers and barely flickering candles, a few hearthfires. The bonfires that are potential Arcobaleno stand out in comparison. When he searches for the latest generation, it is easy enough to find the strongest Sky (Sepira’s family unfortunately but he can’t change the system), Sun (a hitman of all things, intriguing), Mist (and it will take some doing to con that one, good thing Kawahira’s had a lot of practice), Storm (an even tempered Storm, what a novelty) and Lightning (Who for all his intelligence should be easy to lure with the prospect of Science on Strong Flames).

The Rain gives him trouble, and not in the way he expected. He spends a month trying to figure out which of the two is actually the stronger and dodging the terrifying relationship they seem to have. Really, even in his day Rain’s didn’t court by running the other over with an armored vehicle. At last he has to settle it with a human game of Eenie-Meenie-Minie-Moe and hope he got the right one. (And at the ceremony he will curse when it not only turns out that he didn’t but that the stubborn male Rain followed her like a lost puppy and inadvertently prevents the end of the world by taking on the curse. Backfire Colonnello indeed.)

When he turns his attention to search for the Cloud, he nearly chokes at the potential he can feel lazily drifting about. Even worse, it is absolutely untrained and untamed, closer to the last Cloud’s of his youth then the modern Clouds. So much light from the flames Kawahira feels almost blinded after eons of staring at what amounts to near darkness. He tracks the Cloud down, to find him performing stunts for money, as isolated from modern flame society as Kawahira is. His use of his Will is crude, focused on survival and not combat, and Kawahira knows the Cloud will be considered weak by the others who have no way to see how much power he truly holds.

The Cloud lights the world like a beacon, and Kawahira feels bitter regret that to keep the world alive he must sacrifice that light.


	4. Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunting in the dark.

Skull’s eyes flicker open to the blackness of his room.

While he has not come as far as he could in the six months he has been forced to interact with other Wills, he has learned from watching the Changer how to construct a few simple alerts with his Will. He hadn’t mentioned it because the Changer is a money grubber who’d be welcomed in Hell’s own counting house and Skull is not paying an absurd price for something that wasn’t even taught to him.

There are people with ill intent outside in the dark.

He does not bother to wake the others, they will simply argue with him and ask him how he knows and waste time. He might not be part of their world, but he is not part of the light one either. He opens his window, slips down the wall and to the ground. A broken ankle forces him to waste a few precious minutes willing it back together before he takes dirt and rubs it over his face, covering pale skin that the moon caresses to better hide himself. He follows the trail of tripped warnings, a length of chain in his hands, and begins dealing with the problem.

He takes out two of the group of five before they notice, the third when they start looking around for him. He’s forced to leave that one hanging by his chain when a startled flare of flame and distant swearing inform him of the second group he missed waking up the rest. He’s distracted for a few seconds.

Thus he finds out the hard way that one of the remaining two is a Calmer-Rain when Skull gets a knife in his side that Calms his Making.

He staggers back and kicks out, a lucky hit breaking the Rain’s neck. That leaves him with a gash in his side he can’t close until he removes the knife and forces out the flames and one enemy still standing. He chooses to retreat, using the dark to hide him while his last foe swears and comes after him. He’s bleeding, cornered, and more then a little pissed.

Which is how Renato finds him, still playing cat and mouse and bleeding like a stuck pig. The last thing he sees before the darkness takes him and Skull passes out is the surprised look on the hitman's face at the damage Skull has done.


	5. Seeking Solace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sky is dead, the Sun mourns, and the Cloud offers what comfort he can.

The house feels empty when Luce dies.

Renato roams from room to room overwhelmed. His Sky is gone, he has no home now. None of the others comes to talk to him, each lost in their private grief.

Except Skull.

The stuntman, their odd and almost feral Cloud, follows him silently through the house. He makes no comments, simply picks up a trail of smashed objects and thrown books. When Renato finally just falls to his knees, Skull sits on the floor beside him.

“I’m sorry you lost your Home, Renato.” The Cloud makes no further sound, but Renato leans his head on the other cursed man’s shoulder, taking what comfort he can.

The world will not offer him more, after all.


	6. Break Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is not one for groups, so he would claim.

Luce’s death seems to be the key in the lock that binds them tightly together.

Skull watches the others go their own way, and goes his. There is nothing to keep him with them, after all. Clouds by their natures are roamers, and it pleases him to do so. He does not go entirely back to the life he once led, can not in this small body, but in general he stays as far away from the others as is possible. On occasion they track him down and demand he do something for them, and he does. On occasion he deliberately sets out to annoy them to watch them respond.

Then much to his surprise the Vindice almost kill him (he has never encountered flames like theirs, Unmaking would be his best guess for them) and the little Home Renato, no Reborn now, has been ‘tutoring’ frees them. The rest of them seem to take it as a reason to band closely together again.

He takes it as a reason to do his best to leave them behind. True, they will come looking for him, but he is a Maker, he does not do groups, no matter how tempting the Home offered. He would rather be alone in the wilderness.

Or so Skull tells himself, hoping he will eventually believe it.


	7. Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heaven will wait, a very long time as it turns out. One shouldn't expect untested technology to have no surprise side effects.

The sun is warm, the sky clear, the road endless and empty.

Skull blazes down it with no regard for laws or safety, popping wheelies and pulling himself up onto the handlebars of his bike. He wears no helmet, well aware the cops will have a fit if they see him without it. He does not care, the day is too perfect to waste on a stuffy helmet.

It’s as close to heaven as he’ll get for a long, LONG time.

It’s not just his Making flames that cause him to think that, it’s what he’s felt ever since they all gave as much flame as they could to Talbot’s device, to let Bermuda and company fling through their portals for a near eternity. All of them, they’ve given up more then most of them know. He’d felt the moment his flames and Hibari’s burst past human constraints, only moments after Tsuna’s and the other Skies and moments before Reborn’s and the other Suns. A chain reaction, a price paid, though he suspects none but he and possibly Byakuran know it. The Tri-Ni-Sette is WHOLE again for as long as their flames burn in it.

And in exchange for their flames, the Tri-Ni-Sette has made them pseudo-Earthborn.

True heaven will be a long time coming.


	8. Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It amuses Byakuran that the Arcobaleno view Skull as innocent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note, if any of you want to adopt a drabble and run with it I don't mind, just please give me credit and drop me a comment with a link to the work so I can read it myself.

It amuses Byakuran, that in almost every world Skull is the ‘innocent’ amongst the Arcobaleno.

The civilian, the non-mafia member, the peasant amongst nobility, the virgin in a group of jaded whores. So many worlds, so many Byakurans that see so many Skull de Morts who are so many subtly different versions of the same person. It matters not if it is Skull de Mort the stuntman, Sukaru the circus performer or Dokuro the geisha, he is the outsider to them.

He is always tempted to steal him away, but Skull is never happy in the few worlds Byakuran does so. The Cloud is always drawn to the other Arcobaleno, and never truly flourishes without them. He needs them, even in the world’s where they never see or chose to forget his worth. And so Byakuran leaves him to them. It is the only gift he can give Skull the Cloud will accept.

And Byakuran honors a man who stood against him across all worlds with all his Dying Will in the only way he can.


	9. Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Renato deals with Skull in his element.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will note I have no problem with Ducati motorcycles, but my semi-biker brother and his buddies look down on it for some manly reason unknown to me. Hence Skull's dislike of being stuck with one.

There were days the universe hated Renato.

Luce had sent him out with the civilian of all people, clearly an attempt to promote team bonding. The civilian, on a bloody assassination. Which had gone wrong, somewhat. He’d gotten the target, but not the target’s band of buddies. And now he and the civilian were playing keep away from the group intent on taking a pound of flesh out of their hides.

“Bingo, actual motorcycle! Ugh, fuckin’ Ducati…” And now the civilian had stopped and was fiddling with the motorcycle of all things. Renato contemplated shooting him.

“Not now, Lackey!” One plum colored eye was turned his way, the civilian looking annoyed.

“I have a name, Hitman. Use it. Now get on!” Somehow the civilian had managed to get the bike started and swung a long leg over it. Renato debated the merits of refusing to ride bitch for a moment, then got on.

And nearly threw up as the civilian took off with no regard for life or limb.

They careened around corners, wove in and out of cars, hopped the railing at least once, and didn’t slow down once. The civilian was laughing, a mad cackle that suggested he was actually enjoying this. Then the purple haired madman spotted an eighteen wheeler and the laugh got louder.

“Hang on Hitman! Unless you want to see if you can Will yourself back together!” Renato felt his eyes widen. The civilian wouldn’t!

He would.

They slid under the semi, Renato’s vision full of tire tread and pavement, and he would deny ever making a high pitched, girly scream as they came out the other side and took off upright again. He clung to the clearly insane Cloud with his eyes closed for what seemed like ages until the bike shuddered, bucked, and dumped them into the grass of the roadside as it gave up and died. The civilian was still laughing, soft and breathless sounds now.

“Fuckin’ Ducati. Figures. Yamaha or Harley’d have lasted ‘til we got back to Luce’s. Fuckin’ Ducati.” The civilian sounded entirely too pleased with himself. Renato shakily sat up and shoved the other off him. The civilian just rolled and sprawled in the grass, smile reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat’s on his lips.

“If you ever do that again, Skull, I’ll shoot you.” The civilian just looked amused.

“I thought the first rule of Italian driving was ‘what’s behind me is no important’, Renato.” Renato scowled.

He was going to get the purple haired lackey for this.


	10. Breathe Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's dark and it's stifling.

It’s dark and it’s stifling.

He can’t move, can’t see, can’t think, can’t breathe past the pain. It smothers his flames to their lowest point, a bare handful of embers that are all he has left. For the first time in decades he can feel the reaper prowling about, just waiting for those final bits of Will to fail. He is dying, possibly already dead, and it terrifies Skull as nothing else will.

Then someone shoves their Will into his, reignites embers into their comforting raging inferno, and Skull can breathe again.


	11. Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They all remember a world that will not be.

He remembers a world that will not be.

All of them do.

It makes Lal cling to Colonnello as she normally wouldn’t, Viper avoid them all even more the usual, and even Reborn seems shaken at the idea they could be so easily killed. For Skull, that remembered death is something of a novelty. He can die, a Home exists that is strong enough to end him.

More then one, actually.

But Tsuna is too kind, too gentle to end him. He is… fond of the little Sky, but he already has Hibari, and Skull is not fond of regrowing teeth. Let the absolutely vicious little Maker keep his territory, Skull does not want it.

(He does not want the memory of being the second Cloud in that Sky for a brief time either.)


	12. Insanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byakuran should have listened to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fairly certain this counts as morbid...

The other versions of him warned him.

But he didn’t listen.

He was so sure he could take the Cloud Arcobaleno for his own, he’d even meddled just a bit with the past so that Skull de Mort wasn’t chosen for that position. The stuntman when he awoke in Byakuran’s time had been so grateful for someone who could explain things to him, why his body hadn’t aged, why his flames were so powerful. It had been child’s play to harmonize with him. Then Byakuran had actually started putting his plans into action

_‘There is a city with spider women and moth men and they are all screaming as the females slaughter the males and then turn on each other…’_

It had started when he killed the replacement Cloud Arcobaleno. The fool had barely put up a worthwhile fight, no where near what Skull could do when pushed. He had brought the dead pacifier back with him, tossed it to Skull as a victory prize. The stuntman had caught it. And begun to scream.

_‘From the ruins of the city come a spider woman with black hair and a flame mark and a golden blue eyed moth man. Even though they talk and laugh, they are quite clearly dead, and it is equally clear they killed each other in the end.’_

Each Arcobaleno dead increased the screaming, Skull having to be restrained and sedated or he would bash his head against the walls, trying to kill himself only for his flames to mend the damage. After Viper, great bleeding gashes would appear and disappear across Skull’s far too skinny frame.

_‘Others join the macabre parade, walking into dark water that pours from the empty eye sockets, nostrils and gaping jaws of an elaborately carved skull. They do not reappear, even though the water can not be deep.’_

With the deaths of Lal Mirch and the Reborn of the past, Byakuran knows he has broken the Cloud beyond repair. He goes down to the padded room, punishing himself with the images coming from Skull’s shattered psyche. He enters the room, looking at the fragile bleeding form. Skull looks up at him, violet eyes wide and blind.

“The bones of the world are screaming, Byakuran. Make them stop, please.” Byakuran nods, picks up the broken should have been Arcobaleno, and runs his Lightning through the man’s body until even he can’t regenerate. It is not a fast death, and Byakuran suffers every second of it with Skull.

He should have listened to himself and not tried to steal the Cloud from the other Arcobaleno at all.


	13. Misfortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just his luck, to be stuck with these fools.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vay+nee+tay+qua can be said to be indirectly responsible for this one, since her/his comment provided the drabble bunny with fuel. The romani phrases are from http://www2.arnes.si/~eusmith/Romany/phrases.html
> 
> Also, most likely major liberties taken with Gypsy/Romani culture, but I'm going with it being different because of the Dying Will flames.

“Kaski san, Maker?” (“Whose are you, Maker?”)

Skull’s head was ringing and normally he would have fixed that with a quick jolt of Will, but he could feel the speaker was a Calmer, a strong one. If he twitched wrong she’d Calm his Making and slit his throat. He carefully raised his eyes, taking in the rather amusing sight of Renato, Colonnello and Verde trussed up like Christmas turkeys, and debated his answer, ignoring the fact that they were being held by a girl who couldn’t be more then thirteen. Skull could feel the rest of her kumpania (company) around them, even if they got past her by violence they’d just end up back in here or dead.

“Si khohaimo may pachivalo sar o chachimo (There are lies more believable than truth), Calmer. I am no ones, I have no Home nor want one. Me som Sukaru (I am Sukaru).” The Calmer didn’t react well to his declaration, they never did. Maker’s were too rare to not be given to a Home when they were born. Instead of blaming him, she turned to the others.

“This! This is your fault, Gadje (outsiders)! Gadje Gadjensa, Rom Romensa (Outsider with Outsider, Rom with Rom)! Te bisterdon tumare anava (May your names be forgotten)!” She’d gotten so hysterical she fled the caravan, causing Skull to make a disapproving noise. Clearly her Home indulged her too much if she was allowed to act like that. Skull sat upright, using the brief interlude before someone else came in to will his head to stop hurting. Colonnello looked over at him.

“What the hell, Lackey? Why the hell did a bunch of gypsies knock us out, kora? And why are they so pissed, kora?” Skull could hear a little of what was going on outside, and his blood had run cold.

“They think you’ve murdered my kumpania and stolen me, Colonnello. There isn’t much that gets the Rom in a fury, but theft of a Maker or a Healer does it just fine.” Changers, Swords, Shields, they were a dime a dozen and nobody bothered stealing or trading for one with another kumpania. Calmers were a bit rare, but not worth the hassle to fight over. Everyone expected Homes to get traded about until they found the kumpania they were meant for. Makers and Healers on the other hand? They were watched over from the moment the wise woman confirmed their Wills to the moment they were handed off to their Homes and their brides or husbands. Except in his case, where he’d overwhelmed any Home they tried to put him with. Eventually the Rom had had to let him go his own way, but some apparently hadn’t gotten the message. Verde was staring at him in disbelief.

“There is no logical reason to think we would steal you of all people, Skull. You are…” Skull interrupted.

“A poor representation of a Maker, I know that. I am still a Maker, and their Calmer probably sensed Luce is you lot’s Home the moment she sensed me. The Rom don’t have many Makers or Healers and the ones they do are bound to a Home early. So they think your being typical outsiders and taking me away from them because you lot seem to think it’s your right to trample over our ways. They think you’ve murdered my family because no kumpania would let a Maker or Healer bound to them go. They think they’re rescuing me.” He tilted his head to the side, then choked as the hearthfire warmth of the kumpania’s Home headed in their direction.

“Please, keep your fucking mouths shut and let me deal with this.” The door opened and the ancient Home made her way into the room. Skull met her hazel eyes squarely, noting she must also be the kumpania’s wise woman. The moment he felt her Will reach for his, he both flared his up to it’s full potential and pulled it sharply away from her. To her credit, she did nothing more then flinch at the full strength of his will (Luce had staggered back and cried out the one time she’d tried and not tried again). She tutted amusedly, sitting down on top of Colonnello who gave Skull a look that said this was all his fault.

“So, my errant Hands discover not a helpless member of the Rom taken captive but the infamous Maker that none have been able to provide a Home for. What a case of o xonxano baro (the great trick, a swindle), eh?” Skull narrowed his eyes at her, allowing a bare hint of his fury into his Will and his gaze.

“I beg pardon, Wise Home, but you are sitting on MY Calmer.” She looked more amused while Colonnello looked offended.

“Their Home is not yours, Maker. No Home has ever been able to be yours.” Skull inclined his head to the side, as much respect as he could manage.

“No, I have no Home, Wise Home, but none-the-less these three are MINE.” She threw back her head with a hearty laugh, thumping her hand on the back of Colonnello’s head but getting off of him.

“So the Maker proves he has fangs after all! Good, I was beginning to think your time amongst the Gadje had caused them to fall out. They tend to allow their Makers to be so unruly, after all.” She let the humor fall away, seriousness taking its place. “You know what the Old One will ask of you, Maker. Can you live with that?” Skull sighed, then shrugged.

“The Old One asks only what he has always asked, Wise Home. The bones of the world are a heavy burden. Ov yilo isi (It is okay).” She sighed, placing a kiss upon his forehead.

“I apologize again for my unruly Hands, Little Maker. When morning comes we shall return you to where we found you. Though perhaps your Healer might find the night better spent in more... companionable pursuits eh?” As she bent down to cut Verde and Colonnello free, Skull chuckled.

“I’m sure Renato would find attempting to give your kumpania a Healer of its own a pleasant enterprise, but it is up to him in the end if he wishes to sleep with anyone.” After a few pleasantries the Home departed, and Skull heard her catch her Calmer by the ear and begin lecturing, the girl’s high pitched wails telling him who’d lead the group that caused this little debacle. He stretched, then looked at the other three’s confused faces.

“Typical Gadje, so sure you knew everything about Will you never bothered to find out what I knew about it. Sako peskero charo dikhel (Everybody sees only his own dish).” With that, he took a few of the blankets and rolled himself up in them, closing his eyes.

Just his misfortune, to be stuck with Gadje fools.


	14. Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He will have his life back, that is worth smiling about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this prompt was a pain...

His smiles are never real after the Curse.

He is a Cloud, for all that he is not aggressive. His people and then his career have always allowed the instinctive need to drift, to move on a whim and a turn of fate. And now he is chained, first to a group of rigid minded fools who know nothing of the potential of their flames, second to a cursed body too small to be taken seriously. He must always have an ‘adult’ on hand so that no one questions a ‘toddler’ wandering about. He must fight with the others for even a scrap of respect because he is a civilian, not from one of their families.

The first time he smiles for real in decades is the day Tsuna breaks the curse.

He will have his life back, that is worth smiling about.


	15. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silence was meant to be broken.

Skull firmly believes silence was meant to be broken. 

As loudly as possible.

Which was what God and Man invented the motorcycle for.

He causes silence for moments in his shows as he plays with death like a cat with a mouse. His body twists through his show, coming close to death, taunting the reaper into a frothing frenzy. And then it is over and the crowd SCREAMS for him and Skull basks in it.

He has missed this so much.

Then violet eyes meet furious black in the crowd and there is a different silence, one in Skull’s head.

Reborn is going to kick his ass for this.


End file.
